This kid has this many
stars. That school is his leader. Mr. Touchdown adored a certain campus and cracks
the depth chart at this Top 10 program the fastest.

Ronnie Clark will move to quarterback this year at Calera. The rising senior is rated the No. 51 overall senior prospect in America by Rivals.com this season. He played linebacker, receiver, running back and safety last year as a junior. (Jeff Sentell/jsentell@al.com)

This will not be one of
those chronicles.

Those that really know Calera athlete Ronnie Clark are keenly
aware he's not just another one of America's 100 top prep players with talent to make
a signing day constellation of stars look good.

It can not just be about football with Clark.

Not for a kid who has already been a major
caregiver to the two most important women in his life.

When
Clarke's inner circle are quizzed about his future, it reveals a different
perspective.

His selfless actions through his 17 years show he will leave a positive
mark on a campus even if he ran the 40-yard dash in 5.5 seconds.

The No. 5 player on
AL.com's A-List for the Class of 2014 is that kind of kid. The 6-foot-3,
212-pounder also just happens to cover 40 yards in 4.5 seconds.

Clark will choose Alabama
or Auburn next February. The reason why is part of his story. He
just doesn't wish to play close to home. He has to so he can stick close to his family.

Clark set a Calera
record for catching passes last year even though his primary position seems to
be on defense. The consensus four-star athlete moves to quarterback this fall.
He steered a 4A offense to gash Class 6A Thompson by running for 182 rushing
yards and three scores in the spring game.

But that's not the great
stuff about this A-Lister.

Clark scored a 19 on his
ACT, but it will not be good enough. He carries an approximate 3.6 grade point
average. He does not plan to enroll at a college with a test score that screams
jock and jock only.

The notion is just a
glimpse of a youth who is just as impressive when his chin strap is
unbuckled.

"If he gets hurt and
never plays another down, the work ethic and the intangibles he has is going to
make him a success no matter what he does," Calera head coach Wiley McKeller
said.

Family man

Clark's worth is shaped
around family. His father's cousin, Odessa Turner, was a wide receiver for
seven years in the NFL with the Giants and the 49ers. Alabama wide receiver Kenny
Bell is a third cousin.

Ronnie Clark Sr. is a veteran
railroad conductor on the last month of a three-year contract with BNSF
Railways in Louisiana. His father moved from Alabama back to his Louisiana home
so he could be near his mother when she was battling brain cancer. She passed
last April.

His older sister Ariel
will be a sophomore this fall at South Alabama. That left Ronnie at home with
mom as he blossomed onto the radar of every major college
football program in America.

What's the common
saying? Boys thrust into those situations become the man of the house? Clark
was a 14-year-old his father trusted with his mother's life.

His mother, Kimberly K.
Clark, was diagnosed with early onset multiple sclerosis about seven years ago.
She is now 44, but her condition worsened about four years ago. The crippling
disease will leave her speech, but will one day intercept almost all her mobility.

Calera's Ronnie Clark looks for running room against Chilton County's Mitchell Parker. Clark ran for 538 yards and added 644 yards in receptions last year as a junior. He also scored 13 total touchdown and wrapped up 46 tackles and five stops for losses on defense. (Dennis Victory/preps@al.com)

Ronnie does a single
parent's share of cooking and cleaning around the house.

"He's not the kind of
kid to say I've got to do this," his mother said. "Or I've got practice and can't
help me out with this or that. Before practice he will call me and say 'Are you
going to be alright for a little bit because I've got practice coming up' and
he wants to make sure I'm taken care of."

When he cooks some spaghetti
that is not quite right, he'll ask how he can make it better. Clark will run
the grocery list to the store and knock those chores out.

"He's a teenager who could
be doing a million other things and he's running to the store and getting me prescriptions
or cleaning the house or taking care of his mom," she said.

Clark will help elderly
ladies in his neighborhood hang drapes. Or he'll just sit and chat with them
for a bit. He'll take neighborhood kids to the park and throw a ball around.

"When I see him with kids
like that, my heart just explodes," his mother said.

There are no words to
describe the pride a father might have for a son in that situation. But Ronnie
Clark Sr. attempts a worthy tribute anyway.

"He is a true leader,"
he said. "Not on that field but around the house and in our family. He's had to
be. There is nothing I have to worry about with his mother with Ronnie around.
He has not been like the man of the house. He has been the man of our house
when I am not there."

What will packed SEC
stadiums mean to a kid who has helped his mother get in and out of bed? Will a
decision about where to go to school faze him?

That is a silly
question.

The man of his house

MS is a tough disease.
There is no cure. There are no better days. And on those darker days, he continues
to bear more than simply his mother's weight.

"Ronnie has been the one
to keep us all on a positive vibe," his father said. "What kind of a blessing
is that to have a son support a family through that? I could not thank God
enough for having a son like Ronnie if I did it every hour of every day the
rest of my life."

His mother has worked
for State Farm for 22 years. She's a claims adjuster. When her Northern
Louisiana office relocated its workers eight years ago, she settled in Calera.

Her local office is
considering building a cubicle in her home so she can work and lessen the trials of a commute as her rate of mobility decreases.

Clark will do his laundry and iron his clothes just
as his Dad taught him to. He'll help his mother go to the bathroom late at
night. When he helps his mother move around, he holds her hand every step of
the way.

"A lot of people say Ronnie really takes care of me
and loves his momma," Kimberly K. Clark said. "He doesn't want me to fall. My condition
is the sort where I could stake one wrong step and I will fall, but he never
lets me."

His take on her disease comes up when he sees her in
a weak spot.

"He tells me you have a disease but the disease
doesn't have you," she says. "He wants me to work toward beating the disease
and do a little exercise this or that or just not give up. He's my motivator."

Calera's Ronnie Clark is expected to choose between Alabama and Auburn as to where he'll play college football. The rising senior carries an approximate 3.6 grade-point average at Calera. (Jeff Sentell/jsentell@al.com)

She gets around with a
full cane and a son that adores her with no regard
to how well she puts one foot in front of the other.

"First and foremost all
praises go to God," Ronnie Clark Sr., said. "None of this would be possible if
it was not his will. But my daughter is down at South Alabama right now. She is
in college and cannot be there for her mother. So everything goes on Ronnie
right now."

"And when I mean
everything, I mean my son has the weight of my
responsibility as a husband to take care of his mother right now. He has his
mom's responsibilities of the house and his responsibilities as a young man and
he carries all of that by himself. That's on his shoulders and all of that
recruiting stuff and the expectations to be great for his basketball and
football teams. He carries it all so well. He carries it so tremendously
well I have to sit back and think God has given a tremendous
blessing to our life and his life for him to carry all of that and never buckle
from that weight. He has never wavered in his responsibilities."

Clark has never asked, "Why me or why us?" Or for a break to be a kid and just play ball
instead of carry that weight. His father is not totally unplugged from his
world. He flies home often. He only missed about "three or four" of his games
last fall.

"If I have to sum up my
thoughts on Ronnie in two words, those would be 'proud' and 'blessed' and that
would have not a single thing to do with football and scholarships," his father
said.

Just like his Dad did

The son actually
parallels his father's plight. The younger Clark saw that's what his father did
in Louisiana when his grandmother's health began to fail due to what was initially
regarded as a brain tumor.

Calera's Ronnie Clark breaks loose up the field in this Oct. 2012 file photo from his junior season. Clark set a new Calera single-season record with his 52 receptions as a junior. (The Birmingham News/al.com/Butch Dill)

"He knows I had the same
responsibilities I had to carry with my mother," Ronnie Clark, Sr., said. "I
had to do what I had to do for my mother the same as he has. And do you know
the only thing he ever complains about? Losing. He hates losing
and now with this situation with his mother I knew he was not going to let it
beat him or beat our family and get the best of us."

There was one another
story shared about a player so skilled Alabama said he could try out at
receiver if he signed. His father brought Ronnie's grandmother to live with the
family in Alabama for about two and a half years.

The athlete Rivals.com
rated as the No. 51 senior prospect in America was also a major caregiver in
the final years of Grandmother Gertrude Gayden's life.

"This part I cannot
leave out," his father said. "Not only does he take care of his mom, but he
also did that for his grandmother. When I had to take the train to Memphis,
Ronnie would give my mother a bath for me. He'd pick her out of the tub and
dress and bathe her for me. Yes, my son did that for his family."

The new Calera
quarterback was between 12 and 14 then. It was a regular thing. He just turned
17 in April. His father points out any kid doing that for a grandparent is
moving.

"But you see it a lot
easier if we were talking about a female and their grandmother than a young man
at that particular age giving his grandma a bath and making sure they get in
and out of the tub," he said.

"But that's how special
Ronnie has been to this family."

Those that are sharp can
deduce his love for his mother and desire to stay close to her will steer his
college choice. She is just that important to him.

A bank account with a
lot of zeroes already

Clark's father came from
a family of 14 children. That's 10 boys and four girls. The family blood was
filled with athletes. There were others who could have made it big chasing a
ball or catching or shooting it, but they did not take advantage of their
gifts. The Calera standout's dad played basketball.

Calera junior Ronnie Clark speaks with the assembled media in Gardendale at 2012 Jefferson and Shelby County High School Media Days in this July 2012 file photo. He's joined at the head table by Calera head football coach Wiley McKeller. (AL.com file photo)

Clark, an avid
powerlifter, raised his son with an abiding rule that he took to heart from his
mother.

"Kids are like bank
accounts," Ronnie Clark Sr. said. "You get out of your children what you put
into them. I kind of took that and ran with that advice with Ronnie. I was
always putting the time in. We started this sports thing with Ronnie with
basketball when he was 4 years old."

His father's contract
will expire in June 22. He'll be back in Birmingham then. It is no coincidence
his son's college decision will be made sometime after that.

There is a lot to do. His
dad plans to build a makeshift gym in the garage. His son will begin some
serious weight training for the first time since he's grown into a body fit for
an NFL future at just 17 years of age.

He'll pick a school, but
it will not be the most important thing in his life that day. It will be another decision he'll fit onto two
broad shoulders.

Jeff Sentell covers Birmingham high school sports for The Alabama Media Group and The Birmingham News. Write to him at jsentell@al.com.